TPS: Leia
Leia Started as the door to her cell snapped open. Cell was hardly the right word for it-the whole thing was perhaps a yard tall by a yard wide, and twice as long, forming a box that she had barely been able to move around in at all. Worse, the sides were clear, and there was no shortage of passersby where she had been held-although perhaps that was about to change. Two rough pairs of hands seized her own. Weak with lack of use, her muscles gave out, and she slumped involuntarily against her captors; one of them slapped her back, pinning her shoulders solidly against her former cell. A fleeting glimpse of brilliant white light raced into her bleary eyes before a blindfold was thrust down over them. Then the hands grabbed her again, rasping what was left of a Senatorial gown on her flesh, and Leia was aware of nothing for a long time but being dragged or guided down on hall and then another, up stairs, into lift, out. The material over her eyes was ripped aside in a single, abrupt motion. "Eyes front." The command was cold and simple, the woman who uttered it - it was a feminine voice, no doubt about that- staying carefully out of her line of sight. Leia instinctively turned and was smashed to the floor again. A knee landed on her back before she could try and recover. "Disobeying your first order is a terrible way to start, you know." The voice may as well have never changed. A slender hand slid under her collar and seized the delapidated edge of her gown, pulling it up to cut off her air supply. "Disciplinary measures are in order, Senator. I'm sure that you understand." A slap this time, then a kick that set her head ringing even though it landed on her abdomen. Whoever it was stood up suddenly and Leia rolled over, clutching at her damaged belly and catching sight of the invisible torturess for the first time - tall and trim, face behind an odd, featureless grey plate. A black glove flashed down and seized her by the throat. "Not lying down on the job, are you, Senator? Shameful behavior in a public figure. I would have thought a bit better of you." Leia felt a moment of release and realized, a split second too late, what was going on - the glove had moved from her throat to the neckline of her dress. She tried, futilely, to get a hand up and stop it from happening. It did anyway. With one jerk, the woman had torn her gown from throat to ankle, rolling the Senator's bare body across the metal deck. Two quick flicks sent the matching boots skidding into the corner as well. Leia moved to preserve some shred of modesty and was stretched out by a low right punch across her shoulder. "Well, then. that does seem a more fitting set of apparel. I'll be checking back in a bit." The Woman stood, stepping heavily on Leia's limp hand as she left. To Leia's horror, though, the portal did not iris shut immediately- instead, a pair of similarly masked troopers, although, oh, please no, no, not this, Male ''ones, entered the room at the same self assured pace. One carefully removed the rags that had once been her clothes. the other, though, reched to his belt and produced what Leia recognized instantly from a guerrila combat force as a stun rod. Electricity on tap from jolting to lethal, a marvel of the compressedd power cell. Sparks already danced at the tip. "Senator," began the trooper holding the device, "Please be assured - I am perfectly aware how much this is going to hurt. Troubling me by screaming about it will only make it hurt a lot worse." Leia shrank, back of course, but there was no point. With surprising swiftness, the prod slashed down and kissed her sking twice on each breast, sending flashes of agony through her and eliciting a shriek of pain despite the guards warning. Her writhings were cut short by the arrival of the other trooper, pulling her to her feet and pushing her roughly against the wall. Mini-tractors snapped on, holding her in a spread-legged stance with her arms high over her head. "I believe that the instructions were quite simply not to scream." the man with the rod touched it to her abdomen, running it from just below her breasts to her navel in a long, agonizing stroke. Leia, teeth gritted, hung limp from her energy bonds, the twisting pain in her gut preventing any hope of a good comeback. He removed the prod briefly, then let it rest against her pubic mound, just above the opening, Leia lost control, her scream echoing around the small chamber. "Not quite, Senator. i shall make the necessary adjustments." He plunged the rod, tip spitting like an angry cat, deep into Leia's lower lips, pushing one leg between hers to keep it in place as the ex-diplomat squirmed helplessly. He left it in for fifteen seconds, fifteen that seemed like infinite, every nerve in her body protesting. The baton clattered loudly against the decks as it slid free. Leia had fainted from the pain, and hung in blissful unawareness of the next apparatus being brought in. ***** ''"You, ma'am, are either brilliant, or demented, or else possessed of a deeper quality than either one. Sadism doesn't cover this." "That will do, officer." '' ''***** '' Leia woke up. ''Well, that was a terrible idea, ''she thought to herself, managing not to scream as the combined effects of electrical aftershock and overstressed muscles and the vibroblade cut that had brought her around all registered at once. Instead, she simply squirmed in agony from the straps that held her in an upright position, teeth gritted and head thrown back, muscles locking with the effort. Even through clenched eyelids, she could pick up the light of a holocamera recording her movements. "Saving something to watch later?" she snapped, with a great deal more bravado than she felt. A white dot of agony appeared in her side as the vibroblade kissed her again. "Yes. Do not speak unless spoken to." The knife moved slowly down the arc of her back, withdrawing an inch above her thigh. She had barely started to gasp in relief when the blade struck home again, making a thin series of strokes along the bare surface of her back. A hand slammed across her mouth and cut of a shriek of pain, leaving her dangling from her restraints and numbly watching blood pool on the floor. "Do you know what just happened?" asked the same voice. She shook her head. No strength left for words. Another backhand to her cheek. "The cuts on your back form the Imperial crest. There is a reason for that." With a snap, the bonds fell loose and she splashed into her own blood and lay there, even when the knife traced out what Leia strongly suspected were initials on her thigh. The door opened and boots clattered in, rough armored hands seizing her and pulling her out, with the fading voice of her abuser saying, "Level two, please. And quickly." ***** ''"Fascinating. I can see where she got her start in politics." "Are you that impressed by her stubborness, Madam?" "Hardly, Officer. I was refering to the way that she can both figure out what we want and so clearly tell herself every plausible reason not to give it to us." '' ''"What do we want, Madam?" ***** The box again. Opaque, blissfully, and with a light bacta spray that made the various bruns and cuts slowly begin to mend over. What on earth had happened to her? There was no memory of it, nothing. Leia guesssed, with whatever bit of her rational thought she had left, that it had been Stockhi Stun Spray. Military grade, no surpirse that it had kept her out. Muffled vices all around, not a speck of light. no binders but no room to move either. Nutrition via a small tube that exuded bland, field-ration paste. No way of knowing, really, what time it was, or hw long she had been in such an enclosure. Leia knew only that, just before she started to panic with claustrophobia, the box disappeared from around her with a whoosh and she was lying on a steel deck, three masked figures around her. One moved swiftly and slapped armored hands on her wrists, securing her in an upright position facing a blank viewscreen. "Senator, " began the voice of one the other two. The same voice that had been the start of her trials. Leia steeled herself for more pain and locked her jaw. "You are doubtless aware f the effects of propaganda, properly constructed and well disseminated, on the public. I would like your opinion on a small promotional clip for the Imperial Correctional Staff." Somewhere in the room, a remote control clicked, lighting up the screen. Leia groaned. The scene was a bare, blank room, with herself hanging nude in the middle of it. A genderless narration was playing in it. "Citizens of the Empire, we thank you for being so patient with our noble forces. The terror groups that seek our destruction have hid well, and fought hard, but only for so long will the mask of righteusness hide a face of destructive and anarchic intent. We have fought back. We have removed the mask of terror, and we show the galaxy its true face." A clamp attached to her head in the video pulled Leia's hair upwards, making her face the camera. The woman onscreen was bloody and bruised and out cold. "We are the Counter-Terror Corps of the Galactic Empire. We will replace the face of terror - here, and everywhere." Onscreen, she was spun, the carved-in crest facing the camera. Words appeared around it. The Counter-Terror Corps. Serving and Protecting Our citizens - Our Only Priorities. Then batons slammed against her skull and she was gone. ***** "And you intend to air this on the Holonet? If nothing else, it will make them fight harder. We'd be lucky to maintain even a shred of public image." '' ''"Please. Have a little more faith than that." "I don't like your other plan a whole lot better." '' ''"Which is why you are still carrying out my orders and not vice versa. Be malignant for once." ***** Dantooine. Rebel troops came to a halt throughout the base as the bulletin was read out, blaring over the installation's loudspeakers. "Attention, all personnel. At approximately 0543 planetary time, a freighter bearing an Imperial Navy crest reverted from hyperspace to this system. It deployed three escape pods and jumped before interceptors could be deployed. Our ground units have since recovered all three pods. The occupants are under medical isolation, and will be indefinitely. Continue about your duties normally." Leia never heard any of this. She lay strapped to a cot in a heavily guarded cell, a thin surgical gown covering her body, eyes open and seeing nothing but the last hour before the had stuffed her into the pod. All but one of the CT agents had left the room, a woman dressed in the same slate-grey as the rest of the Imperial commandos wore. The two had simply stared at each other for a few seconds, Leia with eyes that treacherously showed she did still have something to fear and the woman, safe behind that mask they all wore, surveying her spread-eagle form with terrifying neutrality. Then, without preliminary, the CT woman had drawn a small sonic handgun of the kind used by riot police and turned it on. She would have been safe behind an automatically compensating sound sponge in her earpiece. Leia had screamed and writhed in the agony of a piercing feedback loop that built quickly and sent pain from eardrum to brain until nothing else could be felt. This gun had been modified, in fact, broadcasting its murderous noise on three scales instead of one. The agony had lasted for nearly five minutes. Leia had looked down to find that her nipples were gone - she had literally not noticed the cauterizing heat-knife that had been applied to her breasts. The pain from that hit a second after the last echo died. Next were her feet, scorched to a bone by a low-power blaster. Burning, a typical tool of the CT. The woman gagged Leia first, breaking a tooth in the process. Her torturess shot a glance at the small pad on her wrist, where Leia's vitals had been displayed. Three of the bars were solid red. With a somewhat disappointed sigh, she had stepped forward and sliced neatly along the senator's tricep, slotting something in and then burning the wound closed. From her belt came a spray canister, with which she sprayed first the wund from the makeshift surgery and then the rest of Leia's bdy, a black foam that turned into a solid shell in a moment or two. She had been carried out by two more troopers, put into the pod, and launched. All of this played endlessly in Leia's mind, letting her feel nothing, see nothing but pain. She took no notice when the door opened and one of the guards entered. She did nt hear the other say, "Hurry up, the jammer only holds off the cameras for so long." She did not see the one who entered salute gravely. She did not feel the blaster muzzle pressed to her forehead. She did not hear the shot.